About

Monday, November 30, 2015

Back when I first arrived in Laramie, Wyoming on my cross
country road trip, as we dumped the boyfriend off at my friend’s house and
proceeded on a night of wild debauchery that, being Laramie, involved Walmart
and pricey pizza, I sat in her car to see her smirking at me in a strange way.

“Look at that book,” she said. “And tell me what you
think.”

Now, I’ve come to realize over time that when anyone asks
me directly for my opinion, it tends to mean, “Tell me why I should hate this.”
I don’t like to think that I am so drastically negative or harsh, but rather a
proprietor of truth and passion that results in entertainment that can’t be
found elsewhere. No one, as of yet, has agreed with me on that, however, so I’m
going to have to believe they’re all idiots.

It was a well-made book with an interestingly unique
cover yet not too far from traditional standards that it seemed homemade. I
realized it was self-published by the, we’ll say, unconventional, punctuation
on the back and the horrific summary that told us “This is a story about,”
three times yet never once revealed character, plot, or setting, but just
explained all about the heartache and feelings you will have upon reading.

But then she told me the backstory.

The writer had abandoned his wife and children to go out
into the world and promote his book. He had felt divorce was necessary to
pursue his dreams, and he, according to my friend, deeply regretted it. I
didn’t understand his decisions, being that a road trip would, at very, very
most, take two years, and then what? Go back and get remarried? Why divorce in
the first place? Unless it was not about that, which I think was the missing link.
I’m seeing it being less than six months if we were to be reasonable about how
long a book tour should reasonably take.

But, my friend, being friendly and gorgeous, was probably
being offered the free book as a form of flirting, and his claims of his
relationship status were more about making her accepting of his come-ons.
Later, when I went to his Facebook page, I found, “In an open relationship,” so
who knows what it means.

His story fascinated us, proving just how much being
personal can benefit authors, and we proceeded to read the first couple of
chapters. He was, I will say, amazing when it came to the prose aspects, and
both of us felt his pain and our cynical criticism was tuned on end. On the
other hand, I found his desire to hide information from the audience
irritating; it feeling more like a college student’s attempts at being literary
with poorly formed concepts, dancing around the ideas instead of explaining
them. While I loved the way he said things, I found what he was saying to be a
little airy, the actual point being more simplistic than how he explained it.

Something about him struck me hard, and I continued to
think about his story as we left Laramie and made our way to Phoenix while I
listened to TheLovely Bones on tape. When the mother (spoiler alert), decided to
abandon the family, attempting to rejuvenate her dreams, my mind began to whirl.

I have always admired people who go after what they want,
to dream big and take great actions towards them. The idea of leaving home to
travel the States, nothing but a few small items at your back, intrigued me.
Last year, before I decided to (and subsequently did not) go to New York City,
I considered taking the money I had saved and riding around America to promote
my writing. It was the only time, I had thought, I might be able to do it, if I
later started to develop a family, could I possibly leave for a few months to
spend a lot of money on a tour?

In this, “Ronny” began to manifest. In a parallel
universe, I had made different decisions. I had gotten married young,
deliberately chose to have a child immediately, and yet continued on my path of
writing. Like in real life, Ronny went through several years—after being
prolific—of never writing at all, though this time it was due to her son and
exhaustion, not just my lack of motivation and discouragement. She has gone
through similar events as me, graduating college early, reflecting on actual
criticisms that I have witnessed (mine or other’s), same financial situation,
save for an up-and-coming lawyer husband, and similar writing career.

But there are some major differences. She didn’t major in
theatre, but rather screenwriting; an important distinction because, while all
writing attracts egos, screenwriting is “serious business,” and tends to more
stringently follow rules. I believe, and I think screenwriters would agree with
me most, that films have the most opinionated, self-assured people drawn to it.
Theatre tends to have “artistic” types who sway in the opposite direction
towards weird for the sake of being weird. She is not artistic in other areas,
not a painter or seamstress or actor or teacher, only a writer. Unlike me, she
dated in high school, mostly because I didn’t want Chris, her husband, to be
her first and the timeline didn’t allow for her to wait until college (I was
interested in dating, but coming from a small school, didn’t really like anyone
particularly.)

Mostly, however, there are two values that Ronny and I
differ drastically on, both of which I find make her incredibly unlikable.

Her decision to leave her child is inexcusable. While
anyone who is able to remove themselves from a relationship they no longer want
to be a part of is courageous (No, divorce is terrible and never be taken
lightly, but I truly think that when someone understand they’re not happy and
takes steps to fix that, it is a choice to be respected) but that’s different than
abandoning your child to your spouse. Whether or not you are the mother or
father, you owe it to everyone involved to take responsibility.

But worse,
because it’s about writing, she is a literary snob. Her philosophy on the craft
is the opposite of mine, Ronny believing in heady, intellectual prose, looking
down on fantasy, science-fiction, and comedy, and wanting to write the next
Great American Novel, which must be like Steinbeck or Kerouac, or any of those
names casually dropped in an English class.

Why did she do this? Well, like all of my characters, she
developed on her own without too much inorganic input from me. While she
started from a question of how my life would be different—what would I do if I
was already married with children?—and is the first character directly based on
myself, taking events right from my own life, she is still starting to develop
a personality outside of mine… and I don’t like her very much.

Partially, of course, this is a part of her character
arc, learning over time that her image of the perfect life doesn’t have to be
exactly as she pictured it. Leaving her family was her form of the quarter-life
crisis in which she realized that she truly was an adult and it wasn’t how she
pictured—but via close encounters with death, she starts to accept that she
can’t just start over every time she isn’t happy with her life. Of course
she’ll learn to be more open minded about writing philosophies, because she
needs to redeem herself somehow.

But my real concern is that I am putting in no effort to
fig leaf this shit. In the past when any
time a character got anywhere close to looking that they might be a remote
avatar for myself, I covered that up with all kinds of gender-infused paint.
Previously, I hated when people ask if a character was supposed to be me, often
because they weren’t, at least not on a predominant level, though they of
course had aspects of myself. If a character did seem too similar to me, I’d
make him a guy. Or black.

Now that I’m writing a protagonist with no attempts to
change my story to hide the fact that, yes, this really happened to me, and yet
she isn’t particularly likable and has beliefs and takes actions that are
against my own morality (which is kind of the point), I have to wonder if, one,
the hatred of her will prevent people from continuing the read, and two, make
readers confused about my actual beliefs. Some of her opinions I am making fun
of, a commentary or point on that type of person or a previous version of
myself, and sometimes it’s something I agree with; I want her to be diverse and
complex, not always bad or good, not always agreeing or disagreeing with me. I
fully intend on giving mixed signals about her abilities as a writer, showing
her rejections, acceptances, fans and haters, and letting the audience know,
without allowing for any examples of her actual style, just how hard it is to
determine your skills from the feedback of others. She is not obviously good or
bad in any way.

From personal experience when it comes to Gone Girl or Chicago, unlikable characters can make for great reads—as long as
the audience is aware they’re not supposed to like her. The main question
becomes how do you make that readily obvious from page one, especially when a
character features main attributes of the author and that authors are obviously
narcissists who would never condemn the actions of that Mary Sue?

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Thursday, November 26, 2015

But this isn’t a case of me asking for
praise or to be lied to. I’m certainly not going to show you what I’m working
on, and like hell I’ll put my comment section back on and let everyone know how
unopinionated all the other people are about me.

I bring this up because I haven’t had
this experience in a long time, and yet it is a pretty common one.

I remember back when I was writing my
first few manuscripts having that moment of, “Wow. This is so bad,” about
midway through. My response was that I would just make the second half better
and go back and fix the first. I highly recommend this reaction because
finishing a book is a faster way to improve your writing than writing a whole
slew of beginnings. Plus, it’s more encouraging. There’s something about seeing
a completed manuscript in front of you, even if it’s a sloppy first draft.

And, in many cases, you’re going to be
somewhat biased against your own work. Partially because there’s a difference
between how you see something while
the middle of making it and first impressions. Also because any self-loathing,
doubt, fear, and mostly knowing the shallow or stupid reasons you made a
decision can dilute the “genius” of it to someone who is blissfully unaware.
It’s likely that when you hate your own work, you will feel differently when
you actually read it.

I mean, that’s not the case now, this
work currently is pretty God-damn banal.

There’s several reasons for this.

I’ve talked about my writer’s
constipation in the last few months. My production rate has gone steadily down
since I graduated high school, though I did manage to get some manuscripts and
publications under my belt in the last few years of and following college. This
last year, however it’s gone down to pretty much nothing at all, though I do suppose
I have been good about blogging.

When my 26th birthday hit
last October, I was unhappy, and I knew a lot of that had to do with my writing
life. I decided that I would return to my old ways, keep my promises to myself,
and start writing five pages everyday again. I have done very well, actually,
for the most part—although I padded some of my numbers with blog pages—and am
pretty content with myself. I was hoping to get a manuscript that is about
70,000 words long finally finished before I hit National Novel Writing Month,
but that didn’t happen. My mind was very much on that piece, and I was banking
that I would come up with a new idea for November before thinking one over.

I did, actually, but it was the day of.
While listening to The Lovely Bones (skip
this paragraph to avoid spoilers) on tape as the boyfriend and I drove across
country, I thought back to a writer who my friend had met who had abandoned his
wife and kids to tour across the country and sell his books. Meanwhile, the
mother in the novel had left her living children after the death of one in
hopes to go back to school and restart her life. She is gone for several years
before returning home.

The real life writer who had abandoned
his family confused, enraged, and enthralled me. I have long wanted to go
across America selling my books, and I wondered what it would be like if I had
settled down with kids and a husband. I couldn’t imagine leaving my family
behind, and I didn’t really understand why the writer had felt it was
necessary. I believe the story he told my friend was not the whole of it, and
while we read the first chapters of his “fictional autobiography” (whatever
that means), it became readily apparent that he was a depressed individual, and
what he told my companion about loving his wife and kids was about his regret,
obviously having thought that leaving it all behind and starting over would
make him happy. Which, as of yet, it wasn’t working.

The premise of a mother abandoning her
family, a parallel universe where I had focused on a relationship and marriage,
inspired me, and the first several thousand words were easy to write. For the
first time I used my own experiences and perceptions and opinions to create
this woman, though I have no husband or kids and would never leave my child to
run off and “find myself.” I believe that I—and the real-life writer—could
negotiate a business trip for a few months and then return. But that wasn’t
really the point.

But then I needed a plot. Moreover,
writing about real life modern day actually bores me, and I know very well that
whenever I try to create my America, the book ends up abandoned on the shelf. I
decided to create magic inside the world. This normally would be a good idea,
however, it wasn’t something that came natural.

Usually the magical elements tend to
become clear in scenes, visualized. Not in this case.

I was inspired by Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, or rather his description
on why he liked to write like that. Unlike me, Gaiman is a true urban fantasy
writer—not to be confused with urban fiction writer—believing that magic is
best when it is slightly infused with our reality. I have also been yearning to
create a setting as rich and whimsical, yet terrifying and dark as Harry Potter. This led me to think very
critically while I didn’t have time to sit back and mull it over. I needed to
come up with decisions fast, and instead I’ve pulled my usual stunt of glossing
over things so I didn’t have to answer them. I had no natural inspiration and
my mechanical ones required a lot more time to be developed.

Normally, this isn’t that big of a deal
because I understand character or plot or theme or setting or something well enough that the story can
still be propelled forward by at least one of those strings and it’s not so hard
to flush the others out later. While my main characters of Ronny and Eliza are
interesting and with merit, Eliza’s goals (supernaturally based) aren’t well
defined for me—or even for her for that matter. Ronny’s writing is just a
peripheral motivator, a flavoring. It’s not really what the story is about or
what propels her. I’m learning more about her as I go, but I’ve yet to find a
good reason for her to do what she’s done or the parallel back to the
supernatural part.

Her husband, Chris, has come out decently
enough, but his storyline is limited. He needs to move on while she’s gone,
making her redemption harder, yet I’m not sure how to give him an interesting
conflict.

Then there’s this ex-boyfriend of
Ronny’s who I’m regretting putting in every minute. In attempts to make his
appearance less coincidental, it’s coming off as more and more contrived. Plus,
I don’t particularly like him. However, to cut his character it’ll mean a
complete rewrite, and because I’m behind on my Writing Month quota, I am more
inclined to keep the continuity of his existence and then choose to change it
all together later. This is for various reasons that I won’t go into, but
suffice to say, he’s a cardboard idiot. I feel like he might be a reflection on
how I see the men who criticize me whenever I go to a bar and then are shocked
I hate them. They’re not multidimensional either.

For whatever reason, whether it be that
I’m writing in a real setting, that I haven’t gestated the idea longer, that I
don’t have the time to go back and make huge changes, that my character is very
much based on a somewhat parallel version of me, or that the critiques of the
manuscript I’m editing are coming quickly to light again in this one, but this
piece is not turning out. I’ve written quickly before, I’ve not planned before,
so what is it that is so mediocre about the decisions I’m making now?

Yet I am not discouraged. I enjoy
editing once I understand the problems in the work, and there is something
exciting to me about having to outline, replot, and rewrite a complete
storyline, especially one that I’m not too invested in. I have room to play and
do whatever I want to it. The chance of experimentation is fun, and somewhat
novel to me. No heartache over my “darlings” in this piece because there’s not
a lot to it.

And if it goes abandoned in the draw, so
what? At least it’s help me get back into the habit again.

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Thursday, November 19, 2015

I’m not good at sharing. I’m good at giving and I’m good at hiding my stuff and myself so it doesn’t
come up, but trying to balance my needs with others is difficult. Having spent most of my life isolating myself, being pretty poor at
letting others in and, honestly, not really feeling too remorseful about it, it
came as a shock when my boyfriend moved in with me this summer and I had to
adjust.

It didn’t matter that he was perfectly content minding
his own business. Although a portion of it was that he wanted to spend time
with me, go out and do things, a bigger issue was that just by having him in
the room, I felt stilted. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t written in public like
the library or Starbucks, but I suppose there is a certain anonymity there that
helps you get lost in your world. Yes, other people are technically around, but
they’re not really people just background noise.

While traveling from America to Australia this week, I
realized several things: I can’t write with someone looking over my shoulder,
especially if it’s a guy. My brother and boyfriend are—and I say this as
affectionately as I can muster—judgmental whores.

“I can see why you don’t want like writing with me right
here,” my boyfriend said the other night. “Because that sentence is terrible.”

I ignored him, but it didn’t help me be immersed in the
visualization.

For many the hard part is bringing writing into your
family life. A lot of writers start in their later years, or just put it down
for a time when they needed to step into the “real world.” For me, I put off
the real world as long as I could (hence my writing of science-fiction). I had
a boyfriend all throughout college, but we didn’t live together, Skyrim came
out, and I was deeply discouraged and uninspired due to my professors’
competitive and insulting nature when it came to art. I didn’t write much then,
but I didn’t attribute it to my dating—too much.

My real only scheduling conflicts have been school and
work, and in many cases, I can get a little done at my jobs. These work hours,
at least, are consistent and predictable; you know you’re going to have to
leave at 10 a.m. so it can help propel you when it’s nine and you’re like, “Oh
shit.”

I discussed previously how having less time can actually be
more productive sometimes than having all the freedom in the world, and it
still remains true, especially for those of us who work best under—as Calvin
and Hobbes says—“last minute panic,” but that only seems to work if the time is
scheduled.

When it comes to family, it’s less predictable.

When, as children, my brother and I complained about our
parents asking us to help them, one of our main issues was that they gave us no
warning. (Our secondary issue being that we didn’t want to.) It was frustrating
to be asked to drop everything to come “now,” instead of having been informed
earlier in the day that they wanted us to do something. In some cases, it was
obvious as to why my parents didn’t give us a heads up—they didn’t know. And,
yes, we were being spoiled butt-munches, if I were to be honest. But it wasn’t
entirely undue when you planned out an hour to write and then suddenly, when
you finally get into a scene, there’s a knock on the door asking you for “Happy
fun crap moving time” as my brother likes to call it.

After I came back from college and learned how to
communicate rather than whine, and my parents started to listen instead of
assuming I was just being lazy, we developed a better way for us to work as
needed. My parents would give me fair warning if they wanted something done,
and, in most cases, as long as I did I within a reasonable timeframe, I could
do it when I had a moment instead of being limited to their schedule. More
importantly, I had my own space in which I could shut the door and block out
the world and wasn’t constantly exposed to others.

Many writers complain about family members not
understanding that they are really working, and even though we can pick our own
routines, sometimes we need to, well, stick to what we picked. One author
blogged about how a neighbor was furious when he asked, since she stayed home
the whole day, if she could come and wait for a package for him. He didn’t see
it as being real work, and didn’t know why she couldn’t just drop everything if
she didn’t have a boss to be mad at her.

The story stuck with me because, as a one-time event, you
could see where the neighbor is coming from. “You can’t postpone writing for a
few hours to help me out?” But what people don’t realize is that the constant
expectation for you to ignore writing for “just this one thing,” can extremely
screw with your productivity. Authors know themselves, and some of us are most productive
at certain times a day, sometimes we need a strict routine to make it a habit.
Other writers don’t, but it’s hard for anyone who has never been their own
boss, especially when it comes to something as “superfluous” as art, to really
comprehend why we need to be stubborn when it comes to our methods.

And, to be honest, sometimes it’s not fair for the writer
to ask for a lot of personal time and less responsibilities just so they can
write. A friend of mine married a potential writer, had a baby, and wants to
encourage him in his dreams. On the other hand, he would come home and refuse
to take their son on the guise of “working,” but then she’d come in and see
that he was just watching random videos.

I didn’t exactly know what to tell her. I’ve been in that
position many times when I said I needed to write and then was caught screwing
around on the internet. I was really
writing, just sporadically. While many times I tell myself to knock it off, and
I would argue it’s more productive to not
do that, it somewhat has to be the writer’s decision. Sometimes you do have to
ease back into the story when at an especially frustrating part, and it’s not
going to do anyone any good to have someone at your back making you feel bad for
screwing around. But, then again, there’s often the reality that I am just
screwing around and I really should be doing more.

What do you do when you are asking your significant other
to a lot you this extra luxury that means more work for them? In the case of my
friend, who has a job as well, it meant that she had to come home and take care
of the baby while he got alone time. This wouldn’t have bothered her if he was
actually writing, but she felt a little used. I didn’t blame her.

I think it’s important to do what you can to help your
spouse’s dreams, but she was under no obligation to pander to his delusion. He
didn’t deserve an hour of undisturbed free time (unless perhaps she received
one too) under the guise of doing work when he wasn’t. Yet, I know damn well that
forcing yourself to work constantly isn’t successful, and especially when
you’re trying to develop a habit of writing, it’s likely that you’ll have
unproductive slip ups, and on occasion you need that.

My solution was to give him about an hour of “nag free
time.” This has nothing to do with gender roles despite that we don’t use the
word “nag” so much as “be a dick” when it comes to husbands, but a means of
compromise for an artist and his/her spouse. Give me an hour of “writing” and
don’t check in to see if I’m actually doing it. If I screw around, I screw
around. If I write, I write. After that, the non-writer is allowed to access if
the writer is actually working; if he is typing away and she doesn’t mind
babysitting longer, then let him at it. If he seems to not be doing any
important, she can then demand, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! You’re done. Take the
baby.” At the end of the month, agree that he’ll show her the document with his
word count. This allows him to pace himself, yet still require results, which
actually might be preferable to everyone involved. If it proves that he’s only
been screwing around, it becomes his obligation to find the time to write
around the baby and his job.

Mostly I believed that they had to work it out for
themselves and that it depended on how his own work preferences, but I knew her
husband had the tendency to be lazy—a huge writer’s fault—and if she was going
to support him in pursuing his dreams, he needed to actually be pursuing them.
While I understand screwing around, I have no patience for writers who refuse to
write, especially if they’re making my best friend pick up their slack.

The problem I found with my new live-in boyfriend was the
struggle of even just having him in the same room as me. I was alarmed at how I
could not escape into my mind. We lived in a studio and couldn’t really get
away from each other—plus my computer was a desktop. I did most of my writing
while he was away at work, but that was usually when I had gotten home from my
job and was exhausted. I would try to do it in the morning while he was asleep,
but he started to adapt to my patterns and wake up when I was loudly click
clacking away.

Traveling made it much worse. It was hard for me to ask
if he could just leave me alone in Starbucks for an hour—go entertain yourself.
How could I explain that I needed to write during lunch instead of talking to
him? I was the one doing the driving, and even if I wasn’t, I get car sick, so
writing as we went was an unlikely proposition.

Worse was when his computer broke. Something got
disconnected a few days ago and we’ve been sharing my laptop ever since. I feel
bad for asking for it, (This is what I mean about not sharing.) but if I’m not
using it, he (reasonably) assumes it’s up for grabs, and I’m like, “Well, I
know I wasn’t actually using it, but I was strongly thinking about it!” I’m
definitely the kid who wants the toy you’re
playing with, and so I tend to stop myself from saying, “No, I need it,”
because, let’s face it, I probably wasn’t going to be writing for the next few
hours if he hadn’t picked it up.

Having lost a day due to time zones, another day due to
jetlag, and another day to meeting his father and actually, shock, spending
time with them, I am very behind. I am not too hard on myself for obvious
reasons, but I’m struggling with balancing a new reality of family obligations.
I feel a little frustrated and down in the dumps. I had been doing so well too!
I haven’t really picked up on the routine of living with this other human
being, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to try and introduce writing into
a family life than it is to introduce a family into a writing life.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

I was once out socializing
(don’t judge me) in which one specific gentlemen became totally trashed. I was
stone-cold sober. Our fellow tablemates got up to leave, meeting us at another
activity. I saw them walk out, then told my friend I would drive him.

As we left, he said to me,
“Call M.”

“What?”

“You need to call M. She’s
pissed. She and C are fighting,” he insisted.

I hadn’t seen these two
tablemates arguing, but I believed there was a possibility I missed something.

“About what?”

“Just call M!”

“And say what?”

“They got into an
argument!”

“We’re going to see them
in two minutes.”

He stared me in the eye, a complete, an almost comical severity in his
expression. “Call M.”

“And say what?!”

I gave him my phone,
telling him to call her if it was so important. He stared at it for a moment,
then refused, saying he didn’t know how to work it.

“I’m not calling her. We’re
seeing her in two seconds.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t just trust me!”

Really? Because, for
starters, you’re drunk off your ass and I’m not. We are having to dividing
opinions what we saw, and not only does it seem reasonable for me to trust my eyes
first, it’s especially expected giving the circumstance.

He wanted me to believe
him over myself, ignoring our vastly different states, make me take action
without explaining what exactly it was I should do. He demanded I respected his
reality more than he was respecting me. Yes, he was drunk. We assume that
inhibits your logic, but is that really why someone wouldn’t reconsider their
stance? Would someone sober always realize the context in which the person their speaking to is considering?

And no, she wasn't mad. She had no idea what I was talking about. By the time he got there, he'd forgotten too.

I work very hard to be
open-minded and respectful (in the ways I think a person should be). Sometimes
I fail (completely), but for the most part, when a person approaches me with
his opinion, I spend a lot of time figuring out where he's coming from, why he believes
what he believes, and determining flaws in his conclusions or differences in
our priorities before deciding if his opinion doesn't work for me, rather than
just going with my immediate reaction. I can be prideful and lazy, and so I
make a lot of effort to determine the difference between my gut and my ego
before making a decision. My gut has been good to me, and it's not fair to
completely write off my instincts just because my pride poses as him on
occasion.

Sometimes, I don't have
the time to understand before I make a choice. Sometimes I take the time, but I
just can't figure it out. In these cases, I will always trust my own perception
first. It makes sense, especially if I know nothing about the speaker. Even
more so when I was already struggling to have any faith in you in the first
place.

Because some people are
harder than others. I still do it when a writer doesn't oblige me the same
courtesy; I believe that being open-minded is about listening to closed-minded
people. But it seems like people misinterpret my choice to hear them out as an
agreement that their opinion is law, and they should continue to tell me what
to do. While I’m struggling not to insult them back, they, blissfully unaware
that I am offering them the same amount of respect I would anyone, not because they
are especially inspiring, feel encouraged to give me their opinion without any argument or proof as to why I should take it. I just should.

For months a man would
post comments on my jokes and anecdotes how I wrote was wrong (even though he'd
never read anything I'd written, and I wasn't even discussing writing
philosophies.) I know he was trying to be friendly, unaware how he was coming
off. One day, while informing me how I should work on a short story, he sent me
his unpolished, unpublished piece as an example, which seemed to not do
anything that he was telling me it should.

An online friend, for who
I incorrectly believed English was his second language, gave me pedantic,
archaic, and sometimes untrue grammar criticism on Facebook statuses, telling
me that correct grammar on social media how he made his writing so good,
showing me his overly written, formal poetry.

The other day someone
interrupted me in the middle of a story to tell me that it's "So-and-so
and I" not "So-and-so and me," and when I explained that you
still use "me" when it's the object of a sentence whether or there is
also another "object" ("My mom gave gifts to me," not
"My mom gave gifts to I," so it's "My mom gave gifts to Kyle and
me."), he grew furious, telling me not to be such a Grammar Nazi.

I found a woman in my old
writers' group to be arrogant and condescending (especially to her readers). I
didn't agree with most things she said. Because I knew I was biased against her
opinion (I wanted her to be wrong), I spent an extra effort to analyze her
feedback and make sure that I actually didn't agree instead of writing her off.
At one point, she gave me some criticism that contradicted what other readers
had told me. When I clarified to her what they said, she insisted they were
idiots and I should just trust her. "You can't believe everything you
hear." She didn't seem to realize that if I was just going to throw out
anyone's advice, it would have been hers. I was trying so hard to consider her opinion,
which I felt was restrictive, simplistic, and shallow.

Someone posted on the
question, "How many books do you publish a year?" bitching about
other authors' decisions to produce a lot, how they had to suck, and how he had
worked on his manuscript for ten years, it was picked up by a traditional
publisher, and it deserved to exist; "Does yours?" If you have to self-publish,
he said, then it's probably not good enough. On his book, he had a homemade
cover, a typo in the summary, and two weeks later, after complaining about
selling only four books and insisting he'd never write the sequel, his
publishers stole his royalties, he bought back his rights, and ended up
self-publishing.

If I had to ask writers to
do one thing, it would be to understand that your voice is only one of the many
that your fellow authors are getting. Know that your perspective isn't always
obvious, and don't grow upset when someone doesn't inherently trust you and
wants you to further your explanation. Understand that if they are listening to
you, it's because they're trying to hear you out, not that they don't have an
ego. And don't think that, by listening, they're necessarily agreeing, that
you're necessarily saying some great truth. Many times it’s something cliché and
hackneyed, and that just makes it harder to not just reply, “You need to write
more.” It makes sense for a writer to believe in the reality he sees first, and
for those of us who have been writing thousands and thousands of pages for
many, many years, it can be incredibly insulting for someone to come up and
start pushing their opinion without considering ours. Before saying you someone
else is wrong, keep in mind that they are probably making the effort to not
just write you off, and that it's possible they think you are wrong, but
believe in giving you the benefit of the doubt rather than pushing their
agenda. They are setting aside their ego to consider an outsider’s perspective.

And please, for the love
of God, do not insult me, give me your writing as example of greatness, and
expect me not to feel pissed that I can't go, "Yeah, but that sucks."
Don't give me a reason to be a bitch, I'm already trying hard not to.

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Monday, November 9, 2015

I like arbitrary guidelines when it comes to writing.
Saying something like, “I have to delete 20,000 words,” or “I have to go
through five drafts” takes off the pressure of determining if it’s ready until
after I’ve already familiarized myself with the book thoroughly. I give them to
myself all of the time, so when someone decides that they have to go through a
certain number, especially having written for a long time, I consider it a good
move.

Yet while I don’t criticize people for giving themselves a
specific amount of drafts they must do (as long as they are aware and willing
to admit when they’ve started to overwork something), I do think that this
obsession and importance on versions is highly overused.

I tell the little fable about my three feedbackers at a
writer’s conference.

The first was an agent who said to me that while I could
use a little more world-building, she loved my writing style and told me to
send a letter to her coworker who represented the genre. “You can use my name,”
she said.

The second was a writer who said that, though she would
like to understand the setting better, she thought I was a competent writer and
felt safe in my hands.

The third told me it as obviously a first draft.

“No,” I said simply.

“Is it finished? Yes? It’s your first book then. Your
first science book then. Well, you don’t read the genre…” She spent probably seven minutes out of my little time with her running through her options, all the while, I
was like, “Does this matter?”

If it reads like a first draft to you then it’s irrelevant
if it actually is or not. End of story.

While living in L.A. several years ago, I produced a play
that I wrote and directed. (Some people have their qualms against this hubris,
but if you’ve ever tried to hire a responsible director for cheap, you know
that it’s not always about ego.)

The lead actress approached me a day before the
performance, claiming that I should have gone through more drafts. She hadn’t
learned her lines, and she suggested it was because they didn’t make any sense.
Now, this could have been true, but she obviously had a reason outside of maintaining
high standards for the criticism.

I gave her no sympathy, saying, “It’s gone through five
drafts. What confuses you?”

Upon hearing this, her tune changed. “Well, you should
have told me what they meant!”

“I didn’t know you didn’t understand them,” I told her. “You’re
very good at acting when you don’t know what you’re talking about. It was your
job as an actress to make sure you knew what you were saying. If you really do
feel that way, may I ask why you’re bringing it up now instead of while we were
rehearsing them?”

She didn’t have an answer for that, so I basically told
her tough shit, too late, go learn your lines.

What annoyed me most about that whole discussion, however, was how “it’s gone
through five drafts,” was a legitimate argument. She seemed convinced that she
was wrong, when, if someone had said that to me, I would have responded, “Then
you should have done another one!”

Let’s disregard the fact that I could have been lying (I
was not), but what a “draft” is isn’t well defined. By five drafts I could
literally mean I changed five words. And even if it was the truth that I went
through detailed, painful edits, if it didn’t make sense to her, it didn’t make
sense. Why does the number matter? Of course, it’s likely that she knew she was
in the wrong already and the only reason she shut down was because she knew her
arguments were shaky, but it’s not like it was uncommon.

In a class called Page to Stage in my college, we would
read scripts and go to theatre shows in Los Angeles to see them performed. One
of these was a play written specifically for the theatre, which all but one
student hated.

I said that it seemed the writer came up with a premise,
didn’t know where to go with it, kept writing until it had run long enough, and
then quickly ended it.

My professor said, “It has gone through twelve edits.”

“So?”

While people constantly claim that first drafts are
always garbage, really having gone through so many drafts doesn’t mean it’s
good, and sometimes even worse. No, I don’t agree all first drafts are terrible
(though they’re bound to have at least a few mistakes the author would want to
fix), but not only that, sometimes the first draft is better than the twelfth.
Or the sixth is, or the third.

Anne Hathaway insisted on doing a huge number of takes (I
heard 30) for her song in Les Miserables;
they ended up using the fourth one.

If writing well was just about editing a lot, publishing
would be a lot easier. “I want to see twelve drafts of this, stat!” But doing a
good draft is about fixing errors, considering results, and judging the manuscript
on quality, not work ethic. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a first draft or a
millionth, what matters is does it work?

Now, of course it’s easier to criticize a person’s work
ethic than their creative results, and many of us—myself included—want credit
for all of the time we’ve spent writing, but it’s a continuing conversation
that just needs to die down. How many drafts I’ve gone through should not
change your opinion of the story. It does though, and it is a clear piece of
evidence towards how “experienced” people’s choices are construed differently
than the same choice by an amateur. Every time someone starts to focus on how
many drafts you make, use it to consider how much trust is dependent on things
outside of how you write, and note how much easier it is to judge a writer by
numbers than by abstract quality. Then inform them it’s none of their business
how many drafts you went through and get over it.

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Friday, November 6, 2015

No, I didn’t receive hate mail. Not everything’s about
me, despite the evidence. I’m not sure Stories of the Wyrd has established its current direction, let alone gotten a
new one.

I’ve never read Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series.
From what I understand, it’s been going for about two decades now with a huge
number of titles. It’s extremely popular and has been going strong since—I
don’t know—its start I guess.

But back around 2006, apparently things took a turn for
the worst.

When it started, it fell more under the category of
paranormal thriller, a detective novel featuring murder and Blake’s attempts to
understand the supernatural. People loved the characters and the underlying
tone of romance. It was fairly popular.

Then Hamilton wrote the book Narcissus in Chains. The protagonist received a powerful boost to
her supernatural talents called the ardeur. While it grants her great
abilities, it requires her to have sex daily, sometimes even several times a
day.

People had been complaining of the ease in which
characters fall for Blake on a constant basis. It started to feel, according to
them, that the author had fallen too deep in love with her protagonist and was
flopping men her way left and right. Now with the ardeur, the books became more
erotica than thrillers and it pissed off a great deal of fans.

Whenever anyone brings up the series now, it seems to be
to discuss this change in direction. The people who want to talk about the
books tend to be those who want to bitch.

However, the sales of the series—even though about ten
years have passed since the decision—have not waned, or at least much, and
there are many fans on Goodreads and in Hamilton’s presence that compliment the
story line with great love.

One day the author gets onto a forum discussing her
books, which she claims never to have done, and finds people bitching heavily
about the change since Narcissus.
Obviously hurt, she goes to her blog and posts “Dear Negative Reader,” a letter
to those who hate the series new direction, telling them that she is sorry, but
they shouldn’t waste their time reading something they don’t like. There are
plenty of books in the sea.

This, not surprisingly, served to piss readers off even
more.

However, despite the adamant hatred of the new plotline
some people have, it doesn’t seem to have damaged the books’ ability to be
published, sold, and enjoyed. In fact, many people joked that they weren’t at
all interested in the series until after
it changed towards a more erotic world.

Hamilton was clearly in a controversial situation and, I
feel, any wrong move at that juncture could have destroyed her career.

Refusing to acknowledge a choice wasn’t successful for
fans can lead to them abandoning ship. Like Hamilton says in her letter, the
fact that these readers had more fodder to bitch about from the books after Narcissus suggested that they were still
reading, and she reminds us her sales haven’t dropped. What would have
happened, however, if it did cause her readers to stop reading? Would she have
felt differently if, upon first receiving Narcissus,
everyone refused to buy a new book? Would she have gone back to the way it was?

It also begs the question of writing for the writer
versus for the readers. We know that books that just cater to readers tend to
be, well, terrible. But it is still, in many ways about them. When I read about
this conflict, I began to wonder what I would have done if in Hamilton’s shoes,
especially if it proved to lose me fans. Is doing just what people want a good
choice? Is being stubborn and headstrong any better? Obviously, like
everything, so what is that balance?

I decided a few things then and there.

1. Writing is for
the me, publishing is for the readers.

While I get reward from having written, and I write to
enjoy myself, I produce work because I want people the feel the same way that I
did when I was touched by a piece of literature. I don’t write just for me, I
write to get published, and I published to make people feel, to think, to care.

Also, because it would be nice to get some sort of
financial support.

The way I see it, if I want you to be affected by it and
if I’m going to ask for your money, I have to take my reader’s desires into
consideration. Their criticisms are important to determine how to make
something that will influence them in the way desired. I don’t believe in
writing off their concerns just because I want to do things my way. However…

2. I don’t believe
in sacrificing fans for my enemies.

When it comes to bad reviews, books that have taken their
naysayers too seriously tend to destroy the series. Clockwork Angel attempted to legitimize the love interest’s
sarcasm, arrogance, and anti-social behavior through a plot point, explaining
he wasn’t really that way, he just had to act
that way. On speculation, I believed that the idea was put in because of the
criticism in the author’s more famous books, The Mortal Instruments, in which the love interest—also sarcastic
and narcissistic—was accused of being a jerk and a misogynist. Well, I loved Angel because of Will, and when I was
told the things I loved about him wasn’t really who he was, a little part of my
love died. From the reviews of the later books, I believe that this plot point
didn’t make anyone who didn’t already love Will like him any better, and those
who did like him were just sort of disappointed by the new information.

But what do you do if your enemies are your fans? What do you do if a choice you made polarizes your
fans into two groups?

You might have to choose one or the other, or maybe you
might try to compromise. Trying to make both parties happy will force you to
challenge yourself and be your most creative. On the other hand…

3. Pandering to
readers never works.

I believe that fiction is preferable to daydreams because
of the concreteness of the world. Unlike flights of fancy, we can’t change the
world to suit us. We are more able to experience intense, negative, and
undesirable emotions, which allows our pleasure to be greater. Hamilton has a
point in saying books should make you a little uncomfortable, because if we
just wanted to be in a safe place, we’d stay in our minds.

If readers realize that loud criticism can affect the
books, it makes that world a little less real. You can’t just make changes to
make readers happy. They want those absolute rules to push against. Taking
their criticism, I believe, should be done subtly and in secret. If applied
correctly, all they should know is that they’re enjoying the story more.

Also, sometimes readers don’t know what they want. Like
the child who asks for a cookie before dinner, the writer often has to deny her
audience what they ask for a more fulfilled and maybe even satisfying payoff
later. The things we hate most about our stories is often what makes us love
it. I realized after watching the principle get eaten alive by possessed
students on Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
a moment that upset me to physical illness,that because things like that could happen, and because things like that
did happen, when things ended well, when things were happy and calm, it was so
much better.

4. You shouldn’t
write ideas you’re tired of.

Even if you want to write for the readers, writing something
hackneyed, something you have no ideas for, something you’re just not
interested in doesn’t benefit anyone.

She had been doing the series for many years by that
point, probably over ten books in it. Her trying to only write what people
liked about the prior books, especially when she wanted to be writing something
else, it would directly affect what came out. It’s a part of artistic integrity
to not just do what you know works.

5. You’ll get
nowhere if you don’t take risks.

There’s a place for tried and true method of writing, but
that is mostly for the author to determine if he wants to be there. He’ll never
be taken seriously if he follows all the rules, writes the standard perfect
plot structure, features a white, male protagonist, and never pushes the
envelope, but there are those who would like to read him.

Taking a chance is the only thing that will make writing
pop. And you know people will reject it at first. Sometimes you have to stand
your ground and keep at it until people stop balking at change. Sometimes you
were wrong, and it’s hard to tell the difference.

Let’s face it, the different direction may have lost her
fans, and many people feel her writing is less “serious” and more pulp fictiony
now, but I think it’s up to her to determine what she cares about. While I
believe, from what I’ve heard, Hamilton has fallen in love with her characters,
given her protagonist a silver spoon, and cares more about the people in her
story than the story itself, I think she made the right decision in going in a
direction she was interested in and then standing her ground. She had a hard
decision to make, and while her fans are pissed, I think there is something to
be respected for it.

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Monday, November 2, 2015

When it comes to phonetically writing out accents, the
readers are divided. Illustrating a character’s speech with too many
apostrophes and uncommon conjunctions can be very distracting, and often does
not encourage the viewer to hear it in a natural way.

On the other hand, when a writer commits to it, you can
get used to it, and it can be a far more entertaining read once you get the
hang of something different.

The book Dustlands,
a young adult dystopian novel, features a first-person narrative from the
perspective of an uneducated girl. The author doesn’t use quotations, writes in
first person, and has lines like, “Because everythin’s set. It’s all fixed. The
lives of everybody who’s ever bin born. The lives of everybody still waitin to
be born.”

The major comment on the book is this style, and many are
agreed: it’s jarring at first, but most grow accustomed to it.

Mark Twain, Uncle
Remus, and A Clockwork Orange is
notorious for this, and many books, done with moderation, have enhanced their
atmosphere by including just a little bit of natural twang.

That is, however, not what I’m talking about.

When I say “casual vernacular,” it could reference
accents and unconventional conjunctions, but mostly it talks about the little
things—sentence fragments, starting with an “and” or “but” or “or,” “me and”
instead of “and I.” You know, basic grammar rules that many discard in actual
conversation.

Writers, when giving advice, will often harp on proper
grammar, and there often is some validity to it. The mistakes we get away with
when on the time-restricted activity of oral conversation are not appropriate
when in the competitive field of writing. We believe great writers to have
precision and a better control over their language than the average person and
will hold our authors to a higher standard.

Plus, it actually does lend to better control over the
language; knowing and implementing the rules can gain more trust from the
audience as well as give more options to your palate. In the same way that
knowing and accurately applying to difference between “walk” and “amble” can
make both words more effective, so can knowing the difference between an
ellipsis (…) and a dash (—).

On the other hand, we shouldn’t ignore that grammar is an
easy method of proving superiority of writing ability. I can’t convince you
that I can write wonderful characters in a sentence, but I can show off all of
my grammar knowledge. Sometimes grammar isn’t criticized because its effective,
but just because the speaker is showing off. Adding in the fact that sometimes
technically correct sentences will sound strange to the local ear, it makes
sense that just because someone fixates on proper structure doesn’t actually
make their advice useful.

I would even argue that being technically correct and
formal can become a huge mistake commonly portrayed by beginning writers.

If you read a lot of “first books” and unpolished
fiction, you might notice a trend in having an explanatory tone of voice. Many
writers will attempt to subconsciously work from a camera’s P.O.V., the voice
of the narrator being fixated on being clear and accurate. Instead of having
atmosphere or influencing the reader emotionally, they attempt to describe
events unemotionally, in chronological order, without the other senses like
smell or feeling. It sounds almost like a textbook.

The narrator has no opinions. It does not want to sway
the audience by telling them what they should feel. Instead, it lays out the
events in a precise manner—“He pulled out a three inch blade with his left
hand, walking two steps forward towards his son, Jonathan.”—and will stop the
pacing of a moment to explain something that no character would be thinking
about at that time, destroying the tension of a little girl fleeing from a
monster to go into this explanation that she didn’t use the word daddy because
she considered it to be childish and she wanted to be an adult, which is why
she stole her mother’s high heels that one time, all in the course of three
seconds when she’s about to be devoured.

These stories often have the opposite issue of the
beginning writer who tends to overwrite, (What has two thumbs?) the ones who
focus on voice enough that they may not be delivering actual information as
much as describing grass nicely. But instead of being too poetic, the
explanatory writers are so intent on being clear that they forsake inflection,
atmosphere, tension, feeling, or perspective.

They believe this is a good thing. “I don’t want to tell the readers how to
feel. I want them to decide for themselves!”

Which is a legitimate desire. You can make the objective
and formal narrator work for you, and it’s definitely something to be
considered when you’re feeling inclined to write that way. It’s important to
never just disregard your instincts simply because it is a similar instinct to
what other people have, or because other people do it poorly. A writer who
focuses on an objective description of events can utilize it to enhance their
book immensely.

But it’s hard. Sometimes it’s not worth it, and it’s
definitely a question of do you do it because it’s best or because that’s just
what you happened to have done and you don’t want to change it?

It’s one of those things that I would recommend having a
reason for doing outside of it could
work. Telling events in a cold, formal manner can make those moments feel
remote, be harder to relate to the characters, and not influence the readers
emotionally, only intellectually. It is exactly the difference between watching
a movie about an event versus a documentary. That may be way you want, but
acknowledge what is actually happening and be honest about the reward. If you
don’t see an actual benefit, realize that it’s much easier and often more
enjoyable to write something with a voice.

When discussing grammar rules, some writers will argue
that breaking them is a poor choice. You must speak properly when writing.
There definitely is a higher expectation of grammar when it comes to the
written word, and ignoring that standard can make you look like you don’t know
what you’re doing. But I believe that restricting yourself to doing what is
“technically correct” versus what is actually done is foolish. There are so
many methods to creating ambiance, voice, and conveying meaning portrayed through
officially improper writing, and it would be foolish to limit ourselves from
using them just because some book says you’re technically not supposed to. Especially
because most of us know those who write so correctly that they sound like
English is their second language. Writing perfect grammar doesn’t mean people
are going to enjoy or respect your book any more so than if you had written how
you speak.

When you put it like this, most people will agree with
you. I’ve gotten in several conversations about it which usually ends in their
understanding of my view. But then, they add, “I think that applies more to
dialogue.”

I don’t. And while I would agree that you can get away
with more in dialogue, and you might even want to be more “wrong” in conversation than you’re even naturally inclined, I
do not believe that using realistic vernacular in even a third-person narrative
is a bad thing. In many cases, I think writers need to let themselves be less
formal when it comes to description.

It depends on what you’re going for. In many high fantasy
novels, the formal way of writing makes the reader feel like they are in a
different time and place. Writing casual vernacular would modernize it and
actually destroy the atmosphere. Sometimes you want to keep your characters at
a distance, being objective and cold towards the protagonist illustrates his
isolation and loneliness. It might be interesting to tell a story as though the
narrator was a historian, or even the main character looking back on the events
in an objective manner.

Therefore, I am, under no circumstances, suggesting that
formal and technically correct narration is a bad thing in itself. It is,
however, not the only choice, and it should definitely not be considered the
default option. It can do great things when used in the right context, but most
times, it’s very, very boring.

By applying the way we actually talk to the narrator’s
voice, you have far more options in how you inform the audience of something.

Why start a sentence with a conjunction? I mean, isn’t a
conjunction like “and” and “but” a connection of two thoughts? Doesn’t that
mean it doesn’t make sense at the start of a sentence?

Only looking at it from a technical standpoint. From a
tonal and psychological one, starting with a conjunction can completely change
a thought, and even help clarify it. It implies evolution of thought, can link
two sentences together without hurting the duration of the action implied by
the length of the sentence, can help the reader compartmentalize complex and
lengthy ideologies, and allows for lists of long actions. Why have a sentence
fragment? It too implies evolution of thought and can help reader
compartmentalize. It also helps the writer have more control length of
sentence, allowing for shorter ones and segregating/emphasizing their points
without confusing people into thinking you’ve changed subjects.

Mostly, however, it implies a humanity to the narrator.
Even if you’re writing in third-person omniscient, where the narrator is never
actually seen or described as a character, giving it an opinion, letting it
describe a chair as ugly, a man as a douchebag, or just have its own take on
words can bring out your personal color and perception, taking dull moments of
necessary events and making them about communicating with a human being rather
than a relay of information.

Do not be pedantic when it comes to technical grammar.
Consider first and foremost the benefit of the decision; you will never prove
that you are a good writer by complaining about the use of the word “anyways”
or that you can’t “whisper loudly,” only that you are a frustrated one. Always
be open minded to the real world, and consider making your narrator more than
just a textbook spewing out information. If your story lacks a voice, consider, maybe, hearing how people really talk and focusing less on how they should be.